120 A HOPEFUL YOUTH tSERM. VSL. ture there is of amiable and hateful qualities amongst the children of men. There is beauty and comeliness; there is vigour and vivacity; there is good-humour and come passion ; there is wit and judgment, and industry, even amongst those that are profligate and abandoned to many vices. There is sobriety, and love, and honesty, and justice, and decency amongst men that know not God, and believe not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. There are very few of the sons or daughters of Adam, but are possessed of something good and agreeable, either by nature or acquirement; therefore, when there is a ne- cessary occasion to mention .the vices of any man, I should not speak evil of him in the gross, nor heap re- proaches on him by wholesale. It is very disingenuous to talk scandal in superlatives, as though every manwho was a .sinner, was a perfect villain, the very worst of men, all over hateful and abominable. How sharply should our own thoughts reprove us, when we give our pride and malice a loose, to ravage over all the character of our neighbours, and deny all that is good concerning them, because they have some- thing in them that is criminal and worthy of blame ! Thus our judgment is abused by our passions ; and sometimes this folly reigns in us to such a degree, that we can hardly allow a man to be wise or ingenuous, to have a grain of good sense, or good-humour, that is not of our profession, or our party, in matters of church or. state. Let us look back upon our conduct, and blush to think that we should indulge such prejudices, sucha sin- ful partiality. 2d Remark. Aman that has not true grace, nor .ho-' liness, may be the just object of our love; for we find several instances and several degrees of love were paid by Christ, the wisest and best of men, to a youth of a covetous and carnal temper; one who preferred earth to heaven, and valued his present possessions above those eternal treasures that Christ had promised him. I confess,' under the Old Testament, in the cxxxix Psalm, ver. 2I, 22. David appeals to God, do not I hate them that hate thee ? and adds, I hate them with a perfect hatred. But this need not be construed to sig- nify any malice in his heart against them as a private per- son; but his design to fight against them, and suppress
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